HR-4191: Speaker Pelosi and Prime Minister Brown have Never Met a New Tax They Didn't Like.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58099

Considering the number of reports indicating that "stimulus spending" is actually not very stimulating, the job creation is being reported in districts that don't exist, or that job creation can't be actually verified or in fact job creation is being reported when the money allocated for the jobs hasn't been actually received or spent yet. In other words, there is little or no accountability for the current stimulus spending and strong questions as to whether or not there has been any effect at all.

At every turn, as more and more Americans are yelling at their Federal Government to stop the spending their elected representatives and Senators continue to suffer electoral deafness.

In this legislative silence comes Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) who has proposed HR-4191, which would levy a separate tax on all stock trades, futures contracts, swaps, credit default swaps and stock options. These revenues would be used to fund another stimulus spending program, even though we're not even sure that TARP and TARPII are working. At .025 percent, the potential revenues generated are estimated to be $150 billion every year.

"To restore Main Street America, a small securities tax on Wall Street should be invested in job creation on 'Main Street'. This transfer tax would be assessed on the sale and purchase of financial instruments such as stocks, options and futures."

It did not take long, however, for other Democratic representatives to raise opposition. Notably, Reps Michael McMahon (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Debbie Halvorsen (D-IL) circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter that stated, in part: "A $150 billion tax on financial transactions will fall on millions of hardworking Americans who are saving for their future through their 401k plans, mutual funds, pensions and others savings vehicles." They correctly note that mutual fund and money market fund transactions are also purchases and sales of securities and bonds. They further note that the American version of the proposal would not exempt middle-class Americans because while the tax would be paid by major stock brokers. The brokers would almost assuredly pass the cost down to the investors, be they individuals or pension and retirement fund managers.

And wait a minute... the American version? That's right! This is part of a coordinated plan to make sure that this tax is global. The genesis of this idea comes from the embattled British Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Brown. As part of his proposal all major financial centers - Asia, the EU, the U.S. and the U.K. - would also have to pass similar transaction taxes to avoid "disadvantaging" any single country's stock exchange. Nancy Pelosi apparently thinks that this "idea" might be popular amongst a public eager to see "Wall Street" firms "pitching in" to help the government grow the economy. Ms. Pelosi, how in the hell would Wall Street be "pitching in" to "help" when these taxes are being forced upon them by the bayonet point of the various law enforcement agencies of "all major financial centers"? The courts have a word for actions like this: Extortion.

To summarize, there is now a movement in the Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives to now levy a tax on most of all financial instrument transactions in order to create a new pool of money that can be used for additional "stimulus spending", even though there are convincing arguments that neither TARP or stimulus are having an actual positive effect and in fact are drowning our people in unimaginable levels of debt?

A warning to most of you Generation X and Y people. If you think that your 401(k) contributions will be affected, you'd be RIGHT.

How's that HOPE and CHANGE working for ya? For myself, I think it SUCKS.

Here's one more tidbit of information for you: http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/. Summary: Since the Obama administration says that about 640,000 jobs have been created with the $157 billion already spent, that works out to roughly a quarter million dollars annual salary per job created. Since the average payroll employee made roughly $57,000 last year, had the government just paid for the labor, they could have created over 2.7 million jobs. But they want to create another tax (HR-4191) so we can enjoy the similar benefits of our highly efficient, honest, transparent and honest government.